Notorious B.I.G.

I can never resist a good Biggie remix/mashup, and this one definitely has all the right ingredients. It’s smooth like butter and perfect for a summer/party playlist. If you like hip hop mixed with funk, this will be right up your alley.

I can never resist a Biggie remix, and it’s hard not to love this funky remix of “I Want That Old Thing Back.” Old school hip hop meets fresh, fun beats. It’s laid back and uplifting at the same time- a perfect summer jam. Check it out.

First of all, I love all the euphemisms out there for “remix” and “mashup.” Re-twist? That’s new to me. Secondly, decent mashups are few and far between these days. Just when I think I’m totally over that genre, something like this comes along that’s clever and well crafted.

These Biggie and Coldplay tracks sound great together, and they’re pretty artfully blended. Check it out:

When I saw that today is the 17th anniversary of Notorious B.I.G’s death, I thought of all the mashups and remixes of his songs I’ve heard in recent years and decided to compile a list of the best ones here. Other than Jay-Z and Kanye, Biggie has to be the most “mashed up” hip hop artist of all time. When I started teaching hip hop yoga, I began to amass a crazy amount of mashups, and the amount I have that involve Biggie is kind of insane.

I was in 8th grade when he died, and although I was aware of his music then, mostly the song “Hypnotize,” I didn’t start to appreciate him (or hip hop in general) until later in high school. I was heavily into indie and punk bands then, like Sonic Youth, Pavement, and NOFX, and hip hop wasn’t even on my radar. It’s interesting to remember that back then, before the internet was really a thing, my only music sources were “Rolling Stone,” “Spin,” the radio, and the staff at my favorite record stores, and I only happened to hear that Biggie had died by listening to the radio after school that day. Now, in the age of viral videos and Buzzfeed lists, we are instantly bombarded with tweets, status updates and texts when anything happens in the music or entertainment world, and 17th anniversaries are actually noteworthy things that we commemorate.

Here’s my Biggie Mashup list:

1.) “Big Poppa Is Sleepless” by Jaymee Frachina and Jeremy Smith (Biggie vs. Flume). You could pretty much mash up any song with “Sleepless” and it would be gold.

4.) “Vesuvius’ Struggle” by Benjamin Dranklin (Biggie vs. Sufjan Stevens)
Talk about two very different artists coming together in the most beautiful way…The pic of the two of them next to the track is priceless.